Re: very slow very bright flasher & Superbird
Brian Hunter (bkh@chem.queensu.ca)
Tue, 12 Oct 1999 12:41:41 -0400
Just goes to show why concentrating on one object is a bad idea. I was also
looking at Superbird last night but my definition of a flash is a bit
different. I have suspected that the flash pattern for Superbird is a bit
more complicated than usually described. I picked up the first 'flash' at
1999 10 12 2:20:16 UT . I was observing with a 25 cm reflector so these
early flashes are at about 11th magnitude. :-) I quit at 4:02:15. I do
have a day job.
The bright flashes were visible on my tv camera on an 80 mm refractor. The
field of view is so small that I only caught a few of them.
To make a long story short, in addition to the flashes that become the
bright ones separated by 11.5 seconds, there are much fainter ones between
them. I have plotted 180 observations from a few days ago and only on the
plot is is clear that these faint one are regular and mid way between the
other series. The reflections off the solar panels can be observed at least
an hour before the main show.
BKH
Brian K. Hunter, Department of Chemistry
Professor Queen's University
bkh@chem.queensu.ca Kingston, Ontario
(613)-533-2620 Canada K7L 3N6
44 14' N 76 30' W
> While waiting for Superbird to appear last night, another spectacular
>flasher appeared a few minutes before. This one was very bright, with
flashes
>in the range of mag 0 to 1. It was not geosynchronous but moved VERY
slowly,
>maybe only 5 degrees over the several minutes it was flashing. The
>brightest flashes appeared to have been occurring at about 10:26-10:28PM,
>CDT (on Oct 11). It was in the area of around 23h 30m RA and -2deg Dec
>(about 6 or 7 degrees North and a little East of where Superbird appeared
>moments later), and moved slowly left (East). Flashes occurred about every
>9 seconds.
>
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